


Evolution

by Tormented_Gale



Category: Tales of the Abyss
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-28
Updated: 2015-07-28
Packaged: 2018-04-11 19:30:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4449380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tormented_Gale/pseuds/Tormented_Gale
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Life is a series of moments. Even a short life has those moments.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Evolution

When he’s born, the first thing he sees isn’t a crying mother or a doting father. He sees a man in a white coat and a burst of green light. The man is joined by another man who stares, and he notices that the man’s eyes are brown.

He does not know why he knows those colors or those words.

–

He does not understand what it is they want from him. If it is to inflict pain, they have done that plenty of times, but their goals remain a mystery to him. They’re really quite fascinating, in a horrible detached way, and he watches with an impassive stare as they move towards him again. Round three. Four? Doesn’t matter.

–

He remembers crawling. He recalls his skin peeling away in large sheets and smelling burning. He sees every time he blinks the faces of the others, but he doesn’t stop, doesn’t pause, doesn’t turn. Even if every drag of his body is agony, it is movement, and movement means he is still alive.

That too is not something he comprehends. What is living?

–

His room. It is a room given to him - pity? necessity? - and he uses it only for its basest functions. There are no knickknacks, nothing personal, for he is not personal and is not a person. Papers are neatly stacked on his desk, books tucked away into their shelves, pens and pencils and notes all organized, stark, clean. He will not abide filth.

When he enters this time, though, he sees a prison, and stops dead in his doorway. He stares at it all, pictures things he never truly is far from, and his vision whitens until there is nothing but movement and song.

They have to move him out of the room for a few days while repairs are being made.

–

His fight. It’s not really his fight either, all things considered. It’s a cause he has taken up for the sake of someone who ‘saved’ him. There is a part of this crusade that he wholeheartedly supports - the destruction of something he so desperately hates - but it is such a small part of a much larger plan. It’s a plan he is privy to not because he is trusted, but because his skills are needed.

He laughs at that. He  _is_ a very good tactician.

–

His choice.

That’s a joke.

He has no choice.

–

He finds peace in the movements of his body as the ship descends into the core of the world. The twist of his foot as he lays his glyph, the flick of his fingers as he extends a whorl, the tilt of his head as he breathes in the power and lets it flow from his fon slots. In this he has a modicum of contentment and it’s almost enough to draw something aside from poison from his lips - but it’s not enough. It’s never enough.

When he hears them arrive, he stops his movements, he remains aware, and he smiles beneath the mask - a shark among insignificant prey. They will all die here, and he along with them. How perfect - those who believe they have so much to lose will now die at his worthless hands.

–

He floats for - oh, he doesn’t know. Time is as meaningless as his form. He can no longer feel, no longer knows if he is just a mass of fonons waiting to be caught up with the larger stream or if he got left behind by mistake. He is, after all, artificial and nothing - perhaps the world does not want him either. So he closes his eyes and for once feels something resembling relaxation.

There is no relief when Van arrives and returns him to the unforgiving world above. But who is he to protest?

–

Betrayal. Loss. He is surprised he is as angry as this at such an expected reaction. Asch is no ally, at least not anymore, and it is about damn time they all realize it. Van seems most furious, but then again, Van is also forcing the spirit of Lorelei to focus, so there’s a lot for him to handle. It’s almost funny. His laughter though is not appreciated. He laughs harder.

–

A land of worthless beings is Van’s vision. Sync imagines the brainless fools they use now as soldiers taking over the world and allows himself a sigh of contentment as he sees everything die in his mind’s eye. Auldrant will not survive such a drastic change.

Good. It doesn’t deserve to survive any more than he does.

–

It’s very empty. Children should be running in the streets, walls should be covered in paintings, stones should be weathered, animals should run amok. There is nothing here, and that nothingness is so familiar. This place is more related to him than Van, even if the Commandant does not realize it. His footsteps are eerie, and he is surprised with himself to think that he wishes another soul were here.

Stupid notions. Stupid thoughts. Pointless waste of time and space.

He takes his place at the top of the stairs and banishes it all from his mind.

–

He recalls as he collapses the moments of joy he has felt tormenting the people now responsible for his second death. His voice can match their dearest Ion’s and it is easy to mimic such naiveté and  _oh_ the  _looks_  they give him - delicious, raw pain. They don’t know pain, not the truth of it nor the severity, and he hates them with everything in his being.

He hates the pity in their eyes, the desperate need for him to accept a life he never wanted and never deserved, and he just laughs as his world fades away to a white buzz. Their faces become little more than jokes the world has played on him. The emptiness, a testament to his own heart, goes too, and -

and he breathes.

It’s the best breath of air he’s ever tasted.

And he dies.

It’s the best death he could have asked for.


End file.
